


Wings

by Sandpipersummer



Category: Swallows and Amazons - Ransome
Genre: Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandpipersummer/pseuds/Sandpipersummer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A widowed Titty receives a letter from Nancy, and heads North for a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctor_denmark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_denmark/gifts).



> Hello doctor_denmark. It's been a real pleasure to have this Yuletide assignment. I've loved the Swallows and Amazons books for a long time, but have never before had the courage to write in their universe. It was a little (lot!) nerve racking at first, and the unfamiliarity made me wibble a bit and wonder if I was going to be able to do it justice...but it came out all right in the end - hurrah! Your prompt gave me a wonderful structure to work with, but also allowed me a lot of freedom, thank you. I've woven in some personal likes, and also some factual elements concerning the lake and the children who originally inspired the books. My only real problem was finishing it - it seemed like it was going to go on forever at one point! I do hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I wish you the very merriest of times this Christmas. xx

'I've received a letter,' said Titty.

She and her mother were taking tea in one of the old-fashioned corner houses that had managed to grip on despite the war and long years of rationing.

'From Nancy,' she continued. 'She thought I might like to take the boys up for a week or two. She and Timothy are staying at Beckfoot for the Summer before Timothy's new posting in the Autumn. What do you think?'

Her mother smiled. 'I think it's an excellent idea. Surely you're not considering turning her down?'

'Oh, I don't know.' Titty stirred a lump of sugar into her cup and gently placed the teaspoon on the saucer. 'I feel so obliged to everyone since Matthew died. You've all been so kind.'

'Just as we should be.'

'Yes, of course. And I'm so grateful and pleased and…. It's just that it can't go on forever, can it? I must begin to stand on my own feet sometime.'

'Darling, don't you think you're doing that already? You have a job, a home, and the boys are well looked after. I do think you deserve a little fun. We'll miss you and them, of course, but a week or two is nothing.'

Titty looked up at her mother, her eyes a little blurry with the steam coming off the hot tea. 'Do you really think so? I don't feel that I'm being much of a success as a person at the moment, and running away feels like the last thing I should be doing.'

'You're not running; it's a holiday. For you and the boys. They can meet Nancy's girl, and all of you will have a splendid time. London and life will return soon enough.'

Titty didn't reply.

'You'll have the chance to find out what times were like as a native whilst the children run around like the savages you lot were in your day.'

They both laughed.

'Mind you,' continued her mother thoughtfully, 'I can't begin to imagine Nancy as anything other than an Amazon.'

***

Titty hadn't managed to dispel her doubts about the holiday, but as the flatlands of the South gave way to the undulating Midlands, and those in turn became the Pennine ridge, until finally the Lakeland fells came into view, she felt a surge of happiness. She could never recreate the past, or take away the pain of the years lost, but she could show the boys the places that had been dear to her, and perhaps they might become dear to them, too.

'We're nearly there, boys.'

She stood up and dragged down the old holdall from the luggage rack. They had been good on the journey, intermittently sleeping, eating and colouring in pictures of trains and boats. They were quiet boys, quieter still since their father had died. They were all a lot quieter since then. Perhaps Nancy would brighten them up a bit.

The boys handed her their pictures, and put their pencils back into the case. She packed everything away and as the train slid into the station she was hit by a surge of memory of the first time she had come here as a child. Roger fumbling with his case whilst Susan tried to have things all in order so mother wouldn't need to be worrying as they changed trains. Then waiting on the little side platform for the branch line to take them down to Rio, or Bowness as it really was.

Today, a taxi was waiting in Rio to take them round by the top of the lake and across to Beckfoot. They weren't going by trap down to Holly Howe this time, and it felt strange travelling overland to Beckfoot rather than sailing. A trade route, of course, she thought absently. She hadn't recognised any of the men running taxis, or the porters at the station. But why should she, her childhood summers here were in the past, and had been there for many years.

'Oh, pull yourself together, Titty,' she said to herself. 'It was all a long time ago. It's the present and doing your best for the boys that's important now.'

The boys cuddled into her in the back of the taxi, the long day taking its toll on them, and on her if she cared to admit it. She hoped Nancy didn't have anything too intense planned for the evening, all she wanted to do was put the boys to bed, take a bath and get to bed herself.

Thankfully, after a small supper, Mrs Blackett had chivvied her upstairs. Her conversation had hardly been glittering, and she was sure she had nearly fallen asleep at the table whilst waiting for dessert, like Jim Brading had done once. She hardly remembered talking to Nancy or Timothy, and could only recall their smiling faces as she'd arrived, their concern when she could barely lift a teacup at supper, and quiet voices drifting up with her as she climbed the stairs.

***

The guest room overlooked the lake. After washing, Titty spent some time the following morning gazing across at the mist lingering on the fells behind Rio. The islands, too, were a haze of grey shadows, and it was impossible to make any of them out. She thought one of the nearer islands might have been Long Island, but it was impossible to say with any certainty. Besides, Beckfoot provided a completely different perspective than that of Holly Howe, so she could have got it all wrong.

She jumped as someone knocked at the door. It opened and Nancy's head appeared.

'Are you all right? We didn't want to wake you too early; you looked like death last night. Was the journey so unbearable?'

A second later and Nancy was in the room, crossing rapidly to the window.

'Oh goodness, no.' replied Titty, 'the journey was fine. I've just…it's just that…I've been rather tired lately.'

'Poor thing. A couple of weeks of lake air will soon set you right.'

Titty wanted to cry at Nancy's kindness. Not because she was Nancy, but because it all felt so strained and unbearably grown up when what she had wanted, she realised, was to be swept away by the Amazon pirate's magic, and not to have to think about her life as it was now.

'Jibbooms and bobstays!'

Titty jumped.

'That little rascal will be the death of us!'

She swept out of the room and Titty heard her thundering down the stairs, shouting, 'Molly! Molly!' at the top of her voice. Titty looked out of the window, cried, 'oh my goodness!' and followed in Nancy's wake.

Outside, Edward and James were scrambling about on the bank near the boathouse. Nancy's little girl held a rope and was warily watching her mother.

'What were you doing?' Nancy's voice held none of the warmth Titty had hear earlier, and none of the Amazon fun and laughter either.

'It wasn't Molly's fault,' said Edward, standing as tall as his seven years would allow. 'I said it seemed a pretty wild place round here and she offered to show us where the savages had their secret pow wow.' He glanced at his mother, then back to Nancy. 'That's all,' he finished in rather a small voice.

Both boys were filthy; there would be the devil's own job to get their clothes clean later. James had muddy stripes all down his shirt where the other two had wrapped the rope around him. Molly had probably declared him a meal fit for savages, if she was anything like Nancy. Titty also saw that for the first time since their father had died that her sons might just have forgotten about it for a little while and enjoyed themselves.

'I was going to be fed to the cannibals!' James exclaimed, his lip quivering just as Bridgie's had done when they'd mistakenly rescued her from the Eels. 'And now you've spoiled it!'

Titty glanced at Nancy who was looking rather nonplussed, much to Titty's amusement.

'Eels,' whispered Titty, and Nancy grinned.

'Eels indeed,' she replied quietly. 'Come on you lot, let's get you scrubbed up and into clean clothes.'

'The Amazon pirates would balk at that,' said Titty.

'Who are the Amazon pirates, mummy?' Edward asked.

'I know!' said Molly. 'My mummy and Auntie Peggy were pirates, before they had to wear uniforms and do what people told them.'

'We all have to do what someone tells us sooner or later,' replied her mother. 'And you three are going upstairs for a bath and a clean set of clothes. No more wriggling around in the mud.'

'Like eels!' Molly wriggled a bit more then ran up the grass towards the house, followed by Edward and James, whooping and shouting 'Eels! Eels!' as they ran.

***

After breakfast, Mrs Blackett and Timothy took the children out in the latest of a long line of Rattletraps, this one looking slightly the worse for wear after Peggy had driven too fast through a ford and the brakes failed on the next bend.

'Galloot!' said Nancy, telling the tale. 'She could have ended upside down under a bridge the way she was going.'

Titty thought about what had happened to Bridget, and wondered, not for the first time, if there had been anything they could have done to prevent it. But Bridget was Bridget; fed a diet of adventure far earlier, and with much more encouragement, than any of her siblings, she had never had a very safety-conscious view of life. Sneaking about in the blackout and before the all clear would have been such a thrill. If only there hadn't been any bombs. Titty gulped.

'What a worry we must have been when we were camping and exploring and doing heaven knows what,' she said, determined not to dwell on her little sister.

'Neither Peggy nor I were anything like Molly,' Nancy said, her guileless tone indicating she thought this to be the truth.

Titty turned her head away and smiled. Nancy had begun walking towards where the flagpole had once been, so Titty followed and by the lake's edge they sat down. A steamer was just coming out of Rio Bay. Was it heading to the North Pole, she wondered? But it turned and began puffing its way towards the southern reaches. She drew her gaze away from the steamer and stared at her feet. If she looked Nancy in the eye, she would burst into tears. Not thinking about one thing had brought the rest of it into sharp focus.

'Things a bit tough?'

'Yes, a little. Everything seems to have gone wrong the last few years.' She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. 'Not the war, not really. We just got on with it, everybody did. But afterwards. It was such a blow, a personal blow, to have got through it all, and survived, and come out almost unscathed, and then…'

She couldn't help herself. Letting her head fall onto her knees, she started to cry. She felt Nancy's arm around her shoulders, then after a few minutes a large handkerchief was brandished in front of her face. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

'I was trying not to do that.'

'I bet you feel better now that you have.'

'Yes, yes I do.' She tucked the handkerchief into her cardigan pocket. 'Although it doesn't take away the fact that my life is a bit of a mess. A lot of a mess, in fact.'

'I can't believe that. Not Able Seaman Titty who rescued Uncle Jim's treasure, who outwitted the Amazon pirates in a daring raid. Who--'

'Oh stop it!' Titty was laughing and hiccuping. 'We were just children.'

'Oh, what rot! That doesn't matter. I suppose now you'll be saying you should be happy with your dull job working in an office because that's what grown ups do.'

Titty didn't reply.

'I thought so. What happened to the book you were writing?'

'I haven't looked at it since before the war,' she said in a small voice that mimicked her younger son's when he was trying to explain the unexplainable.

'But that's years, Titty! Years!'

'I was helping Matthew with the biography he was writing, too.'

'And are you doing that now?'

'No. I said I'd continue it after… well, after... you know, and I just haven't been able to bear to look at it, never mind try to finish it.'

'It might be a good idea to think about getting back into it. Your own, too.'

'I just haven't the time, not with work and the boys and I just get so tired that after they're in bed all I want is to collapse next to the radio for an hour then go to bed myself.'

She sat up straight next to Nancy and looked at the strong, kind face that was gazing back. 'Let's not talk about this any more. Please?'

Nancy sighed. 'All right. But by the end of this holiday, I want you looking forward to life, not intent on sleeping your way through it. I needn't have left it so long to ask you here, but now that I have I want you to come any time you like. I know Timothy and I will be away soon, but mother and Peggy are here, and you'll have a rare old time of it. And the boys too.'

'But I--'

No excuses. You need a break from that dreary London air every now and again, and Beckfoot is just the place. Besides, you've missed Peggy this time round, what with her gallivanting off to the Alps for a month.'

She jumped up and extended her hand out to Titty, who took it and was hauled to her feet.

'Let's take a very grown up stroll around the lawn, and you can tell me what's happening with the rest of the Swallows. It's been an age since Susan wrote.' She linked her arm with Titty's. 'Come on.'

Strolling over the lawn brought back memories of Dorothea and Dick, and their stories of Amazon pirates mowing 'no go' across the grass, then sitting sedately in frocks and gloves accompanying their aunt on a drive.

'Oh don't!' groaned Nancy, as Titty related old stories from long ago. 'Please! What horrors we had to endure. And trust the D's not to forget!'

Titty told her about the award Roger had recently been awarded for his work on asthma.

'By jove! I still can hardly believe it. I thought he might have gone the officer route when I heard he'd thrown over engineering. But a doctor, whatever changed his mind?'

'I've no idea. It was all ships this and ships that, then before we could all take it in, he'd been accepted at Oxford and off he went.'

'Oxford! It was being better than everyone at Latin that must have got him thinking about that!'

Titty laughed. 'Perhaps. We were pretty awful weren't we?'

'I'll say! I'll bet the natives were pleased.'

'Yes, yes they were. And still are, even though he's out in Syria with his own family and no signs of him coming home. They have a boat they take to the coast for holidays. He's doing very well.'

'You Walkers know how to fly the nest, don't you? Is Susan as happy as Roger in her far-flung outpost?'

'Oh yes, I do think so. She had another baby recently.'

'Peggy said. She'll have a mob large enough to crew a sailing ship before long. She and Peggy are always scribbling away to each other, and Molly recognises the Canadian stamps now when a letter comes.'

They had walked round the lawn twice, and were back at the edge of the lake, looking out to where the steamer was creeping back up towards Rio, the white trails in its wake reminding Titty somehow of a skein of geese flying in V-formation, something they didn't see much of in London. She thought about this for a while, then realised suddenly that Nancy had asked her a question.

'Sorry, what did you say? I was miles away.'

'You and John, that's all. You're the only two still close to home.'

Titty wasn't sure what to say about John. He was in England, certainly, but close to home?

'We don't see much of John.'

'I thought he was at Harwich, still. That's not far. Mind you, I suppose with his job he could be here and there and all over the place at a moment's notice. Not like Timothy; Government Geologists seem to be as immoveable as the rocks they're studying. This posting will be it for us, I think. But I bet organised visits to John are a bit hit and miss.'

The mention of visiting John brought Titty out into a cold sweat.

'I say Titty, you've gone the most deathly colour. Are you all right?'

This is Nancy, Titty told herself. If you can't talk to Nancy about things like this, who was there?

'Oh Nancy, last year when we knew John was going to be around, Mother and Daddy decided to surprise him. But… Oh, I hardly know how to say this.' She drew out the handkerchief Nancy had given her and blew her nose.

'Mother said that they went to the flat, and Daddy rang the bell, then knocked when there was no answer. All of a sudden, just as they were about to go back down the stairs, the door flew open and a complete stranger stood on the threshold, looking at them in such a wild manner they thought he must be some kind of lunatic.'

'Was he?'

'No! Of course not! That would have just been the absolute limit if he had been. No. John appeared then, and there was a lot of awkwardness, and mother said it dawned on her rather gradually who this other man was. Daddy of course was onto it from the start. He said afterwards that he'd seen some of that kind of thing when he was at sea, and was familiar with it.'

'With what kind of thing, though, Titty?'

Titty stared at her. 'Don't you see? John is living in Harwich with another man!'

Nancy's jaw dropped. To her credit, thought Titty, she recovered quickly.

'Well, jibbooms and bobstays,' she said in a rather subdued manner. 'Who would have thought?'

'It's been awful ever since. Mother said she went for a walk whilst Daddy talked to John. She's no idea what was said, but you know how John always looked up to Daddy, and wanted him to be so proud. I think he feels he's really let the side down.'

'If not duffers…' murmured Nancy.

Titty let out a long held breath. 'Oh Nancy, thank goodness you understand,' she sighed, then burst into tears again. 'And the map… do you remember the map?' she blurted out between sobs.

'Yes, of course I do.' Nancy didn't sound very sure.

'Daddy still has it, in his study. He had it framed. John tried so hard…the North West Passage…'

The handkerchief appeared in front of her again and she let it soak up the tears that she felt now must have been building up for years. She seemed to be sobbing for hours, but as she raised her head, the steamer was just passing them at the other side of the lake, heading towards the once icy wastes of the North Pole. She started to cry for a second time, or was it a third?

'I wish we were young again!'

'We are young, even though it mayn't feel that way. And we have children, younger than us when we were Amazon pirates and Able Seamen.'

'Are you giving me a "pull yourself together" talk?'

Nancy didn't reply for a moment.

'Couldn't you think again about finishing Matthew's book. And your own?'

'I don't know. London is… well, it's not the kind of place for writing.' She sniffed. 'I don't think so, anyway.'

'Where would be?'

Titty shook her head. 'Nowhere. It's not about how you feel about a place. To be a writer, you have to be able to write anywhere.'

'What absolute rot! Who told you that?'

'I read it somewhere. A famous author said they had written their books in all sorts of uncomfortable places, and that to think you needed to be in a certain place was just an excuse used by those who were never very good in the first place.'

'I've never heard so much rubbish! Are you perfectly sure you're not using what this idiot says as an excuse not to do any writing at all?'

Titty squirmed.

'I thought so.' Nancy folded her arms. 'So, London isn't the place for you. Where do you think is?'

Another steamer was pulling out from Rio Bay. It was bigger than the other one. Swan, she thought, if the one she had been watching was Teal or Tern.

'I don't know that I'm capable any more.'

'You're a Swallow, Titty. Always were and always will be. If Susan can follow her dreams to Canada and raise a whole flock of young 'uns, and Roger become a doctor and John be brave enough to live the way he does, then you have what it takes to write your book.'

Titty raised her face to the sky. On a beautiful day such as this, it was hard to imagine being back in London, or that there was once a war which had killed dear little Bridgie. Did it matter who John loved? Perhaps she should write; she'd missed him. Roger and Susan, ever practical, had got on with their lives, and had taken the past with them to make a future for their own families.

A flock of birds high above the two women wheeled and turned. Not geese, not swallows, not anything she was sure of.

'Nancy, I rather think I would like to live in Rio.' She frowned. 'But I need to provide for the boys.'

'You needn't worry about that; we know lots of people, someone will want a typist or a secretary. You can type, can't you?'

'Oh yes. I have certificates, too.'

'And when you're not working?' Nancy smiled, and the sparkle in her eyes brought a smile to Titty's face as well.

'When I'm not working I shall teach the boys to sail; we shall have picnics on Wildcat and on the lawn at Beckfoot. I shall promise not to reveal to Molly how her mother was once forced into a dress and pristine gloves.'

She laughed at Nancy's grimace.

'And I shall write!'

Neither steamer was in sight as they turned to walk up the lawn towards the house. Titty looked back when they reached the front door; a flurry of dinghies sped out from the sailing school by the hotel they had passed on the way to Beckfoot. White sails fluttering then straining as the little boats jibbed and turned about, zigzagging their way against the breeze that had picked up and was rippling across the water. The boats eased into the centre of the lake, no longer bunched together but opening out and losing formation, each to find their own way.

Spreading their wings, thought Titty, before following Nancy into the house.


End file.
